You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger
by The Talentless Hack
Summary: SaitouTokio, AU. There's something a little off about Tokio's new neighbor…  A Halloween offering in three parts.
1. One

**A/N: Happy Halloween!**

So this one's a real departure for me. Horror's not my thing, generally, and I hate scary movies. But. Inspiration struck, and I am her bitch, which resulted in this (voilà?), so there's that explanation. Title was shamelessly lifted off a recently released Woody Allen film (I do that).

**Also:** The song that I'm quoting lyrics from? Have a listen if you haven't already heard it. Then check out their other songs. Best thing to come out of Denmark since the breakfast danish. And you can quote me on that.

Oh, and allow me to end this Author Note by saying: yes, this is my official return to the fandom. What up, yo?

* * *

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize originated with me.

* * *

_You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger_

**One**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_I seek you out,_

_Flay you alive:_

_One more word_

_And you won't survive._

—"_Eyes on Fire," Blue Foundation_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Someone was moving in.

Takagi Tokio's fingers paused over the keyboard of her laptop as she heard the unmistakable sounds of movement in the apartment next to hers. It had been vacant for a year, and she had finally gotten used to not hearing her obnoxious former neighbor grunt and moan when he had women over. Thankfully, her side of the shared wall wasn't in her bedroom, or she might have been the one to move.

She pursed her lips, then shrugged and decided to greet her new neighbor. Whoever it was had to be an improvement over her last one. Besides, she'd be able to nicely ask whoever it was to please keep their noises down, since she worked from home. So she saved what she had, then got up and padded over to the door, slipping into her shoes and her jacket; the hallway was as frigid as the outdoors, and though Tokio was going to make this quick she didn't want to be freezing in the mean time.

She knocked on the door, then shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and huddled in the lined wool, absently hoping her new neighbor wouldn't be as much of a pig as her old one.

The door opened and her head came up, mouth opening. Nothing came out when she caught sight of her new neighbor.

He was tall and pale, his hair inky against his skin. The face was long, angular, severely hollow-cheeked and vaguely lupine. But the eyes were what held her, what made her throat constrict and air lodge in her chest. They were amber, but held none of the warmth; his gaze made the snow and zero-below temperatures outside seem temperate by comparison.

"Yes," he said finally, voice low and gravelly.

"Tokio," she whispered. "I mean…I'm Tokio. I live next door. I just wanted…to introduce myself."

"And so you have," he said, then shut the door in her face.

She stood outside it for a moment, then wet her lips with her tongue.

"Um, I just…I also wanted to ask you to please try to keep it down, since we share a wall?" she said, raising her voice slightly. "I work at home, so I…I'd appreciate quiet."

There was no response from within, and since she felt like an idiot talking to the man's door, she decided to just go back to her own apartment and back to work. It wasn't until she was in the genkan, shrugging out of her jacket, that she realized she hadn't gotten a name or an assurance, however insincere, of his compliance with her request.

On the upside, though, he definitely had no interest in hitting on her, so that was a win.

Tokio shook her head and hoped for the best.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She quickly discovered that having her new neighbor next door was no different from when he hadn't been there. The man was so quiet she sometimes wondered if he came home at all, or if he was even still living there. And due entirely to her chilly reception, she made no attempt to find out if he was all right or not.

Tokio didn't see him again until nearly a month had passed. She was coming back from the market in the gloomy twilight, walking up the walk to the front door of the building, when she saw her neighbor standing in the shadows of the entrance; she noticed him only because of the wisps of smoke drifting up from the end of his cigarette. Her step faltered for a moment when she saw him, and then she continued on as if she hadn't paused. When she was close enough, she said, "Hello."

His gaze flickered to her, then returned to whatever it was he'd been looking at. Tokio swallowed and wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, quailing a little inside when his gaze suddenly went back to her when she did. He watched her mouth, then looked up at her and met her eyes before looking away again. She swallowed and awkwardly adjusted her bags in her arms, then said, "If I offended you, when I asked you to please try to keep the noise down, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. It's just that the last person who lived there wasn't great about—"

"You didn't offend me," he said.

Tokio blinked. "Oh." She frowned down at her groceries. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

_Now what?_ she wondered after several beats of silence had passed.

"I didn't get your name," she said finally, deciding to try one last overture.

"I didn't give it."

"Is it a secret?" she joked, attempting a cautious smile in his direction.

His gaze pinned her where she stood, and Tokio felt every beat of her heart in a new, vaguely unpleasant way that she had never before experienced.

"Hajime," he said finally, and she blinked, and the sensation of being intensely aware of her own heart dissipated.

"It's nice to meet you, Hajime-san."

His thin lips curved into a faint smirk. "Is it?" he asked, and Tokio wondered what he found so amusing about that.

"Well, sure," she said after a moment, not entirely sure he wanted an answer.

"Hn."

There was another long pause that made her uncomfortable, and Tokio decided it was time to go. She was getting cold, and besides that she was pretty sure she wasn't going to get anything else out of her odd new neighbor.

"Well, Hajime-san, if you ever need a favor, you can knock on my door," she said, hefting her bags up. "See you around."

He didn't respond, either to her offer or her goodbye, and as she struggled to open the door and get through it without dropping anything, Tokio wondered if he was rude or just socially awkward.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

The next time she saw Hajime, she wished there was a handy hole she could hide from him in.

She had been tapping away at her laptop for hours, oblivious to the painful way her stomach was pinching, when loud knocks that sounded like gunshots shook her front door. Tokio flinched, yanked completely out of what she was doing, and only now noticed how low the sun had sunk in the sky, how dark her apartment had gotten, how hungry she was. She took her glasses off and set them aside, then rubbed her watering eyes. Then she rose and walked to the door, which was still being attacked by someone's fists. She looked through the peephole, and her heart dropped: her sister and her sister's boyfriend—who was also her sister's drug dealer and pimp, as the situation demanded—were standing on the other side.

She thought about not opening the door, but knew if she didn't, they'd probably try to break it down. So, sighing, Tokio unlocked the door and opened it.

"Hello Tami," she said, tone subdued.

"We need money," Tami said without preamble.

"You always need money," Tokio murmured.

Tami was thinner than she had been last time she'd come, and almost as deathly pale as Hajime. There were bruises under her eyes from lack of sleep, and the eyes themselves were bloodshot. Tami was twitchy, her clothes were dirty, and her hair was greasy and stringy.

_Par for the course_, Tokio thought dispassionately.

Their parents pretended Tami had died, and their brother had followed suit, but Tokio hadn't been able to bring herself to do it. That refusal had had its repercussions in her own relationship with her family, but even being frozen out by her parents and little brother couldn't make her quite abandon her little sister. There were too many memories interfering with that, Tokio supposed. Her biggest problem was that she remembered who Tami had been, before Yoshida and before the drugs, and she kept hoping the Tami she remembered would come back one day. That hope had grown dimmer in the last year, but old habits die hard.

Or maybe she just wanted to matter to someone so badly that she couldn't bring herself to cut Tami off. Even though she knew Tami was only using her, even if she knew there was no affection or reciprocation in her relationship with her sister…Tami was the only person who needed her anymore, now that her family refused to speak to her.

"One hundred sixty-two thousand, for now," Tami said, ignoring or maybe not hearing what Tokio had said—Tokio was never sure if Tami always heard her anymore.

Or maybe it was more accurate to say she wasn't sure if Tami understood her anymore; she certainly no longer understood her little sister.

"I don't have a hundred and sixty-two thousand yen just lying around, Tami," Tokio said wearily.

"Whatever you have, then," Tami snapped, shoving her way into the apartment, and Tokio looked after her, then back at Yoshida, who lounged in her doorway and smirked at her.

"What've you got her on, Yoshida?" she asked flatly.

"Why's that, Tokio?" Yoshida asked, reaching out to run a finger over the skin above the neckline of her shirt. "You want some?"

Tokio slapped his hand away.

"_No_," she said. "What is she on? Coke? Heroin? Meth?"

"Coke," Yoshida said, amused. "You sure know a lot about drugs, Tokio. Sure you don't want any? I wouldn't mind sharing with you."

Tokio snorted, then turned around and went looking for Tami. She found her sister in her tiny bedroom, digging through her jewelry box.

"What the hell, Tami?" Tokio demanded.

"I need more than a thousand fucking yen, Tokio! What the fuck is this? You know I need money!"

"Then how about a job with a steady paycheck?" Tokio snapped, unable to ignore this any longer. "I'm not a damn bank, Tami, you can't just show up here demanding money and always expect me to have it!"

"You're supposed to take care of me!"

"No, that asshole Yoshida is!"

The blow was unexpected, and hard enough to send her to the floor. She wasn't sure where it had come from, exactly, was only sure that it hadn't been Tami, because Tami had been in front of her and was still in front of her. She was disoriented for a few seconds, and then the pain kicked in. There were sounds, voices, and then she felt someone lower themselves down over her.

"Maybe we'll play next time, Tokio," Yoshida said in her ear, pushing his hips into her, rubbing himself against her, before he laughed and levered up off of her.

She sat up slowly, one hand clutching the back of her head, then got to her feet, holding onto the wall for support. She managed to make it out to the main room, and found her door standing wide open, no other evidence of Tami and Yoshida's having been there.

"Shit," Tokio muttered, tentatively feeling the lump on the back of her head, wincing when gentle fingers trespassed over too-sensitive flesh.

A look at her laptop found it gone, and Tokio swore louder, tears burning at the back of her eyes. Gods, she was so stupid, she should have just grabbed money and answered the door with it. Then again, neither of them had ever attacked her before.

"You don't look well," came a voice from the door, and Tokio's head whipped toward it too fast, making pain sing through her skull and explode behind her eyelids. When she managed to get them open, she found Hajime standing in the hall outside her door, hands in his pockets, gaze on her.

Mortification vied with pain when she saw him. Oh gods, this was the last thing she needed. Bad enough that everyone on the floor had heard her argument with Tami, but for Hajime to have been disturbed—especially after she had been so pushy for him to be mindful of his noises—was humiliating.

"You're bleeding," he said, and Tokio frowned. "Mouth."

She leaned against the wall, then used the back of her hand to brush against her mouth. Blood smeared against her skin in a bright, crimson streak.

"I guess I cut my lip on my teeth when I fell," she said, looking up at him.

He hadn't moved from the hall, impassive gaze still on her in a way that was beginning to get uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. "About the noise. My sister…and her boyfriend…came by."

"For money," he said with a nod, and Tokio felt her cheeks heat.

"Yeah, well," she said weakly, gaze once more going to the desk where her laptop had been. Panic for her job began to set in: aside from not being able to meet her deadline, there was a lot of information saved on her hard drive pertaining to what she was working on, some of it information that, had she worked for the government, would have been the equivalent of classified material. She closed her eyes and willed the panic away; she needed to compartmentalize. She was suddenly glad Hajime was there. Having someone else around would force her to get herself together.

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Thanks for coming to check on me, Hajime-san," she said, forcing a brittle smile. "Would you please come in?"

He stepped over her threshold with particular care, shutting the door behind him and removing his shoes before stepping up from the genkan.

He moved silently, with fluid grace. His eyes flickered all over the room, as if he could make out details in the dim room. Maybe he could; some people had better night vision than others. All too soon, however, his gaze was once more pinning her down, and Tokio was once more uncomfortably aware of herself.

"Would you like tea?" she asked.

"No."

"Okay," she said, deciding that regardless of whether he wanted any or not, _she_ needed some.

"You're still bleeding," he said, hands in his pockets as he stood in the center of the room watching her.

"It'll stop in a minute," she said, tentatively pressing the back of her hand to her mouth again. There was less blood when she pulled it back to check. "It's already starting to clot."

When she looked up at him, he seemed closer, but he didn't look like he'd moved. Tokio blinked, and Hajime was back where he'd been in the center of the room again.

"Must've hit my head harder than I thought," she muttered, carefully using the wall as a guide as she made her way to the kitchen.

She washed the blood off her hand, then went about the familiar, soothing routine of preparing tea. Her nerves calmed as she worked, and as she was pouring herself a cup, she called over her shoulder, "Are you sure you don't want tea, Hajime-san?"

"I'm sure."

"Can I get you anything else?"

"No."

"Would you like to sit at the kotatsu?"

He didn't reply, and she looked around and found him already seated at it, watching her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up upon finding his gaze on her, but Tokio shook it off. She grabbed a bag of frozen vegetables from the freezer before she joined him at the kotatsu, and held it against the back of her head with a wince, then sighed.

"Your laptop is missing," he said.

"Yes it is," she said, not looking up at him, instead pretending great interest in blowing on her tea to cool it.

"Your sister and her boyfriend took it."

She gave him the barest nod.

"Why?"

"Probably to sell it," she murmured. Her gaze flickered up and tangled with his; Tokio had the oddest feeling no power on earth was going to let her break eye contact with him until he wanted it, but couldn't say why she thought so.

"For?"

Tokio snorted. "Short term? Money. Longer term? Drugs, as much to use as to sell, I'd wager."

There was a curious lack of judgment in his gaze. His gaze was clinical, she decided after a moment. It was as if he was gathering information, but not necessarily because he was interested in it one way or another.

"Did your sister hit you or did her boyfriend?" he asked.

"I think it was Yoshida," she said. "The boyfriend," she added when he didn't immediately say or do anything. "I was looking right at Tami when I got hit, so I doubt it was her."

"Was it planned?"

Tokio's eyes narrowed as she considered that possibility, which hadn't occurred to her until he had brought it up. In the end, she decided against it:

"No," she said, gaze focused again. "I've never denied them money before. They wouldn't have been expecting to have to coerce me, or force me."

"You denied them this time?"

She sighed and closed her eyes. "Not on purpose," she said wearily. "But I didn't have enough on me for what they were asking. I wasn't too keen on the idea of giving them any, anyway, so that attitude probably didn't help."

"Why bother with them?"

Her eyes snapped open, dark brown meeting amber. There was something different about them this time. They weren't as cold as they'd been. They weren't any warmer, but they were…much more vibrant than they had been.

"Tami's my sister," she said. "Everyone else cut ties, but I couldn't leave her alone like that, without anyone."

"Doesn't seem to matter to her," he said. "I'd say that fact alone should be enough to satisfy your conscience. And if she has that man, she isn't alone."

"He doesn't care about her," she said with a scoff.

"She likely doesn't care about him either," he said with a shrug. "She needs him for what he can give her. She's a parasite," he added with that odd smirk of his, as if he knew some funny secret she didn't. "Parasites take. As they take, they weaken the host. As soon as she can't take from him anymore, she'll move on. Or maybe he will—he's as much a parasite as she is. Two parasites can't feed off each other. One of them dies sooner or later. Usually sooner."

It was quiet for a long time, and then Tokio finally looked down into her tea.

"She's all I have left," she said.

"Not anymore," he said. "Start looking somewhere else."

"There is nowhere else," she said flatly. "This apartment is it. I work from home, I don't have friends, my family doesn't talk to me anymore. Tami is all I have left."

Silence descended again, and then Hajime rose. Tokio looked up at him, and was once more pinned by those unsettling eyes.

"Start looking somewhere else," he said again, then went to the genkan, stepped into his shoes, opened the door and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

Tokio stared at the door, startled by the entire encounter. It was then that she realized that this was the first time she had heard him speak so much. His conversation was usually the bare minimum, just enough to answer questions without revealing anything at all. What in the world, she wondered, had brought on such chattiness in such a tight-lipped, laconic man? And what could have compelled him to offer her the advice—sound as it was—that he had? The lump growing on the back of her head suddenly throbbed a little more intensely, and she groaned and closed her eyes.

Before she chose whether or not to take him up on his advice, though, a trip to the clinic was definitely in order.


	2. Two

Part two.

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Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize originated with me.

* * *

_You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger_

**Two**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_I'm taking it slow,_

_Feeding my flame—_

_Shuffling the cards of your game._

_And just in time, _

_In the right place,_

_Suddenly I will play my ace._

—"_Eyes on Fire," Blue Foundation_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

As it turned out, she didn't choose whether or not to take him up on his advice—he made the decision for her.

Tokio wondered if he had meant to look to him when he had said to look somewhere else, but didn't ask. She wasn't altogether sure that he would answer the question, as she had discovered he tended to ignore questions he didn't like or didn't want to answer, and she could never tell which questions would get that response. Tokio decided it was easier to just go along with it.

Her neighbor was strange. There was no other word for it. He began showing up at her apartment in the late afternoon, walking in without knocking. The first time he did it, she had been too surprised to be outraged.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Coming inside," he said, sounding puzzled.

"Why?"

"You invited me."

"_Yesterday_," she said, and was made curious by the sudden wary look that came over his face.

"Are you rescinding your invitation?"

"No," she said, baffled by both his use of the word "rescinding" and by the question itself. "Hajime-san, you can't just walk into people's houses like that."

"You invited me," he repeated stubbornly, and she sighed.

"Okay, okay," she said, giving up. "Yes, I invited you. Please come in."

From then on, though his sudden appearance in her apartment tended to startle her because he always moved so quietly, she never said another word about his coming into her space without asking if she minded his company. And Tokio honestly wasn't sure if she minded his company or not. On the one hand, it was nice not to be alone all the time, and she even sort of looked forward to his visiting. On the other hand, he was, on the whole, completely silent, content to sit at the kotatsu without uttering a word for hours, only staring at her in that disquieting way of his.

He never wanted anything: no tea, no water, no soda, no coffee, no juice, no food. All he seemed to want to do was sit and watch her. She didn't know if she ought to be flattered or creeped out. The only thing that kept her from the latter was the fact that the man was clearly socially inept. He didn't seem to be aware or otherwise know about the way people acted. It was obvious to her that he had, for the majority of his life, kept mostly to himself. Which made her wonder what it was about her that made him deviate from that norm.

Whatever it was, Hajime wasn't sharing.

She reported her laptop as being stolen, and tried to ignore the twinge she felt at naming her sister and Yoshida as the burglars. She also had to explain to her bosses why she wasn't going to be able to make her deadlines. They were sympathetic, but understandably upset by the theft and the delay. She had to invest in another computer to begin and then finish what she had been working on. The only lucky break was that she had written out most of her notes on pads of paper, and she remembered most of what she had been working on, so it went more quickly this time. When she brought home and set up the new computer, Hajime only said, "It sounded odd without the sound of the keys." She took that to mean he had gotten used to hearing her tapping away, and didn't mind it.

It amazed her that despite the amount of time she now spent around him, she still knew no more about him than she had before. He was still as much of a mystery as he had been the day he moved in. She contributed that to the fact that he almost never spoke. The few times he did for any significant length of time, she was able to glean aspects of him, but he was by and large unknown.

All she knew about him with any certainty was that he was watchful, silent, spoke only when he felt he had something worth contributing, liked to smoke, and seemed to enjoy her company. It didn't really add up to much.

"Are you _sure_ you don't want anything, Hajime-san?" she asked from the refrigerator, a bottle of water in her hand.

"Yes," he said, lighting a cigarette. "You asked that already."

"I know," she said, frowning. "But you look tired. Are you not sleeping well?"

That odd little smirk showed up on his face again.

"It's nothing to worry over," he said, instead of answering her.

Tokio frowned, but let it go; she was getting used to the many ways he evaded her curiosity.

It had been nearly three weeks since Tami and Yoshida had been by. In that time, she had seen subtle changes in her mysterious neighbor's appearance. He was starting to look a little worn, his eyes losing some—though by no means all—of their eerie, disquieting luster. He seemed a little more sluggish these days, not in any perceptible way that she could see; it was more of a feeling, some weird gauge she was beginning to get the hang of when it came to judging his health.

Speaking of which…

"Hajime-san, you really oughtn't to smoke so much," Tokio murmured, nonetheless grabbing one of the smokeless ashtrays she had had bought specifically for Hajime's daily visits and setting it down in front of him.

He shrugged and tapped his cigarette over the tray.

She eyed him, wondering if she should bring up those water vapor cigarettes again. She had been trying to nudge him away from his smoking, and had said something about it two days ago. He hadn't really indicated an opinion one way or the other—as usual—but he hadn't seemed annoyed, so Tokio decided he might not mind it if she broached the subject again.

"I looked up those cigarettes I was telling you about the other day," she said, taking a seat at the kotatsu with him.

"That right?" he asked, amber gaze flickering over her.

Tokio ignored it; she was starting to get less unsettled, but doubted she would ever really be able to take no notice of it.

"They're exactly like regular cigarettes, except you aren't inhaling any toxins or subjecting others to them. And they satisfy the exact same craving, Hajime-san."

There was a long pause, and Tokio looked up at him to gauge his response, and was startled to find him staring at her in a much more intense, intent way than he had been recently. She swallowed, her grip on her water bottle tightening reflexively.

Why did it suddenly feel like she was sitting at her table with a dangerous predator?

"That," Hajime said finally, "is an interesting choice of words, Tokio."

It was the first time he had ever used her name, and she flinched.

"Wha…what is?"

"Craving," he said flatly. His gaze flayed like a whip. "What would you know about cravings, Tokio?"

She watched him with wide eyes, not sure if she should answer or not. But something compelled her to, something she wasn't entirely sure originated in her, and she whispered, "Sometimes I really want chocolate."

It was quiet for a moment, and his lips curved into that odd smirk of his, but this time there was something about it that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

"Do you know what addiction is?" he asked. "It's a compulsion. It's something that a person wants desperately, maybe even needs…_craves_, as you said." He lifted the hand holding his cigarette. "Do you know how long I've been doing this?"

She shook her head slowly when he didn't continue, obviously wanting an answer.

"I don't remember a time when I didn't. It seems like I've done it forever." His gaze went to the smoke drifting lazily up from the tip. "I don't enjoy it the way I know I once did. I can't. But there's…comfort in the routine. Familiarity. And always, the hope that someday, it'll feel exactly the way it did, once upon a time. So I keep doing it." His eyes collided with hers. "Does that qualify as an addiction, do you suppose?"

"I wouldn't know," she said weakly.

He watched her, then let his eyes drift over her. Then, he set the still smoking cigarette down on the ashtray and rose. Tokio blinked, then looked around, still surprised—no matter how many times it happened—that he was already at the genkan, stepping into his shoes.

"'Bye Hajime-san," she said.

Usually, he didn't respond. Today was different: today, he looked over his shoulder at her before he left, the door swishing shut behind him.

"Well that was odd," she murmured, then frowned as she thought over what she'd said. "…er."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She was dreaming about electronic cigarettes that looked like they'd come out of the Stone Age when she was jerked out of sleep by someone roughly grabbing her and covering her mouth.

Tokio's eyes snapped open. She couldn't move her arms, but her feet were unimpeded, so she tried to wriggle around so she could kick whoever had her. A man laughed, and Tokio stiffened.

"Hey Tokio," Yoshida singsonged into her ear. "Miss me?"

Her struggles began anew, more frenzied than before, and he just laughed louder.

"I never thought you'd report Tami and me for stealing your laptop. Joke's on you though, 'cause guess who they picked up? That's right, big sister, your poor little sis is sitting in lockup right now. They probably got her on a possession charge too—stupid whore always has coke on her when she goes out looking for johns."

She demanded that he let go of her, but his hand on her mouth muffled the words, and all that came out were inarticulate but definitely angry sounds.

"I'm sure you're all torn up about it," Yoshida said. "That's why I figured it'd be best for me to break the news to you. Don't you worry, Tokio, I'll comfort you—shit!"

She managed to kick him in the knee, and managed to tear her mouth out from under his hand.

"Help!" she yelled. "Help, there's a man in my apartment, he's trying to kill me!"

"Shut up bitch!" he snarled, grabbing her by the throat and shaking her.

She struggled against him, scratching at his face and kicking before she landed a lucky fist to his left ear that made him howl and let go of her just enough for her to break free. Tokio rolled away quickly and ran from the bedroom into the living room and then out the door that Yoshida had left ajar. She didn't bother stopping to knock on anyone's door, just yelled for someone to please call the police before she managed to get to the stairwell. She shoved the door open and flew down the stairs, tripping only once when she felt something stab her right foot. Terror that Yoshida would catch her, however, kept her from stopping to check the damage. There would be time for that later, she reasoned: right now, finding safety was the priority.

She made it to the ground floor, and instead of coming out through the lobby went for the emergency exit. The alarm going off might alert Yoshida to her location, but it would also bring the authorities running, and right now Tokio didn't care who answered as long as it was someone in uniform.

She ran towards the slightly wooded area twenty yards away from the apartment building, and hadn't gotten more than a few feet when someone tackled her from behind.

"Gotcha!" Yoshida snarled. "Hit me, will you? You're stupid just like your sister if you think I'll allow that kind of shit!"

He drew back a fist to punch her, but was stopped by the sound of a branch snapping. Yoshida's head came up and he froze, and when Tokio moved her head to see what he was staring at, she found a dark figure looming ahead of them.

"What do you want?" Yoshida asked.

"You," came a low, gravelly voice that didn't sound human, that made the blood in Tokio's veins freeze in terror, "are not welcome here."

"What the—" Yoshida began, and then let out a yelp as he flew off of her.

There was a moment when she was disoriented, when Tokio had no idea what had happened, and then she sat up in the snow and looked around, realizing that she was no longer being pinned down. She saw Yoshida running towards the wooded area she had been heading for, and then she saw what looked like a huge black dog standing not too far from her, watching the man run. The dog looked over at her, and her heartbeat stuttered at the way the eyes—amber eyes—glowed eerily in the dim night. Then the dog shot off after Yoshida, moving so quickly that Tokio's eyes couldn't keep up with it, which didn't make any sense, because dogs didn't move that fast—

The distant sound of sirens suddenly cut into her disjointed thoughts, and Tokio was suddenly aware of the fact that she was sitting in the snow in a t-shirt and sleep pants, teeth chattering with cold, foot on fire with pain.

If it hadn't been for the fact that she could see her own shuddering breaths in the air in front of her, she might have written it all off as a bad dream.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Her foot was attended to carefully by paramedics, and then the police sat with her and got a statement from her. They were combing the area for Yoshida, they assured, and they were confident that they would soon find him, that he couldn't have gotten very far, and there were few places for him to hide in this sparsely populated town in Aomori.

It was while she was going over the events of the evening for the third time with two officers that another, younger officer suddenly appeared, looking very pale and unsettled. One of the two officers with her left to speak to the new arrival, and there was a lot of suspicious and furious whispering before the officer who had left her side cleared his throat and hesitantly interrupted:

"Takagi-san, it seems we have found the suspect."

"Good," she said. "Then you've already taken him into custody?"

"No," he said, looking ill. "The officers were unable to."

"What? Why?" Tokio looked from him to the younger officer and back.

"He was dead when we found him, Takagi-san," the younger officer said. "The fact is…he looked like he'd been attacked by a wild animal. It was…very messy. If it weren't for the fact that there aren't any left in Japan, I'd say a wolf had done it."

Eerie amber eyes in a canine face suddenly flashed in her mind, making the little hairs on her arms stand on end.

"It was probably wild dogs," the officer who had left her side was saying. "Feral dogs in packs can be a menace. And in the dead of winter like this, when food's difficult to come by, they can get desperate. We've had a couple reports of wild dogs roaming the area lately. They probably got him."

"I've never seen dogs do what happened to this guy," the younger man said. "It was like a slaughter."

"That's enough," the officer who was still sitting beside Tokio suddenly said, voice sharp, and all of them were suddenly staring at her.

She swallowed dryly, trying desperately to keep the bile rising in her throat down just long enough to make it to the bath room.

"Excuse me," she whispered, rising to her feet and hobbling into her bath room. She shut the door and leaned back against it for a moment, waiting for the sick feeling to pass, then maneuvered to the sink and splashed cold water on her face.

She would have been the first to admit her abhorrence for Yoshida, but even she wouldn't have wished the death he'd gotten on him. She was getting a gruesome picture of the way he'd died, and she wondered if it was the dog she'd seen, the dog with those creepy, luminous eyes that glowed so brightly in the darkness without the benefit of the moonlight, as if its eyes were on fire—

Tokio froze as she recalled exactly what it was that had scared her about the dog's eyes: they had been familiar. As if she had seen them every day for months.

"You should not be on that foot," Hajime said quietly from the tub, and Tokio whimpered in fright and whirled toward him, then immediately wished she hadn't: he was soaked in blood. It was spattered on his face, had saturated his clothes. The iron-y smell of it hung heavily in the air and made nausea rise up in her so swiftly that she didn't get the chance to even think about trying to control it, and had to retch into the sink or be sick all over the floor.

Hajime was kind enough to refrain from commentary. He remained silent even when the officers tapped on the door and asked if she was all right, said nothing when they said that was enough for one night, they would leave their cards on the table, and to please call them when she felt up to it. She just heard the door click shut over the sound of the water running as she washed the mess she'd made in the sink away, as she bathed her face and rinsed her mouth. She hid her face in the towel rather than use it to dry off, and waited until she was sure she could speak:

"What did you do?"

"I disposed of him."

She slowly lifted her head to stare at him. "You _disposed_ of him?" she repeated. "Hajime, _what did you do_? Did you kill him after the dog got him?"

He raised an eyebrow. "The dog?" he asked.

"The dog I saw, the one that chased him—" She stared at him, and in that horrible moment everything snapped together, and Tokio weakly slid to the floor, felt the blood drain from her face. "_You_? It was you? But you're a man, you're not a dog, people can't turn into dogs."

"No," he agreed with a nod. "People can't."

"What are you?" she asked in a small voice. "You don't act like a normal person, and at first I thought you were just antisocial but it's more than that. This isn't normal."

He cocked his head and watched her. "And if I were to tell you I was a vampire, Tokio, what would you do?"

They stared at each other for a long time in silence, and then she slowly shook her head.

"Vampires don't exist," she said in a tremulous voice.

"That is unfortunate," he decided. "Because the fact remains that I am one, so either they do exist or I'm lying. So. Which one do you suppose is true, Tokio?"

"I can't," she said after a pregnant pause, voice cracking. "I can't, I can't do this, I can't."

Something flickered in his eyes, and he rose.

"You should not be on that foot," he repeated, and then was gone, and Tokio was left sitting on her bath room floor, staring numbly at the crimson stains on the side of her bath tub.


	3. Three

Part three. Sorry for the delay, guys! It was totally unintentional. In compensation, I present to you all a longer-than-what-came-before-it final chapter. Enjoy!

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Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize originated with me.

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_You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger_

**Three**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_I won't soothe your pain;_

_I won't ease your strain;_

_You'll be waiting in vain:_

_I've got nothing for you to gain._

—"_Eyes on Fire," Blue Foundation_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She didn't see him again for almost a month. In the intervening time, Tokio was sure she was having a major psychotic break, because two days after that awful, horrific night, she began searching for everything she could dig up on vampires to the detriment of her job. She felt stupid at best, crazy at worst, but it had become necessary, for reasons she couldn't articulate or exactly understand.

Maybe, she thought often to herself, this is what going insane feels like.

She found all sorts of literature on vampires from everywhere. They were, it appeared, some of the oldest creatures of the night. Vampires in Japanese cinema were a relatively new phenomenon, only appearing around the late 1950s and heavily influenced by American film, but in Europe—and especially Eastern Europe—they had been a presence since at least the Middle Ages, if not earlier. There were even suppositions putting what would now be called vampires as existing during Ancient Babylonia and Assyria.

And though all of this would have been fascinating under other circumstances, Tokio could not enjoy all of this information just for the sake of knowing it. Not when she was clinging desperately to the hope that her neighbor was just deluded, that he was the one in the midst of the psychotic break and not her. Because although she didn't believe he was a vampire, there was something so unsettling and disquieting and just _off_ about him that she had a difficult time attributing it to psychosis. There was something not right about him, something that was alien and wrong on a fundamental level, going far beyond any kind of personality or genetic defect.

Unfortunately, her reading wasn't helping her exactly disprove the ridiculous notion that Hajime was a vampire. There were certain "facts" that made her uncomfortable, made her uneasy, such as the notion that vampires could not enter places uninvited. She remembered vividly how solemn and tense Hajime had become the first time she had confronted him about his entering her apartment without asking her. It had been such a bizarre reaction that it had stuck with her. The other thing that made her uneasy was the way he seemed to almost "wake up" as the sun sank below the horizon; he always seemed a little listless when he arrived in her apartment during the afternoon, but as the hours passed and night grew closer, he became more alert, more aware, seemed to radiate more strength. And since vampires were nocturnal, it stood to reason that night time was their time.

Even the weird dog thing could technically be explained: apparently vampires were thought to possess some shape shifting abilities. If that were fact—and she used the word loosely—then conceivably, Hajime had shifted into the dog last night. Maybe. Possibly.

Tokio fought with herself for a long time as she read more and more and grew more and more fretful. And when she really couldn't stand it any longer, she leaned back in her chair, looked up at her ceiling and sighed, exhausted.

"I give up," she murmured. Then she rose, walked over to the shared wall between her apartment and Hajime's, and tapped softly.

"Hajime-san," she said quietly. "If you're there, I would like for you to please come over."

There was silence from the other side of the wall, but that wasn't necessarily a no. Hajime didn't speak, as a rule, unless he had to. So Tokio waited for a few moments, and then felt ice trip down her spine, felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and knew he was in her apartment. A glance over her shoulder only confirmed what she had had known: he stood by the kotatsu, watching her with those unblinking amber eyes that looked at you and through you all at once.

"Thank you for coming," she said, and he inclined his head. "Please sit."

He folded himself down at the kotatsu, and Tokio walked over to him, distantly wondering who was crazier—he for believing he was a fictitious being, or she for inviting a clearly unstable man into her apartment.

"I've been doing some reading," she said after a pause, and he smirked that odd little smirk of his and nodded. "I want to ask you some questions."

"If you like."

"How old are you?"

He raised an eyebrow, and she knew she had surprised him; obviously he had anticipated the conversation going in a different direction.

"I was born in Meiji 2. I believe that translates to 1869. So that would make me a little over one hundred and forty years old. As for appearances, I'm about thirty-five."

"And how did you get to be a vampire?" she asked, and he narrowed his eyes, his smirk widening and becoming suddenly threatening.

"Take care of your tone, Tokio. I came at your request as a courtesy—I won't suffer insolence, not even to convince you. As to that, the choice to believe me or not is entirely up to you."

"You have to realize how—"

"I don't have to realize anything," he said imperiously. "I know what the realities of my existence are. Whether you choose to believe them is your business, not mine."

"This doesn't happen in real life!" she burst out in frustration. "It's like being stuck in a bad American horror movie!"

His smirk took on a more amused slant. "They aren't that bad," he said. "Even if they only get it about half right most of the time."

"What?"

He shrugged. "Sunlight isn't lethal. It's annoying and uncomfortable, but it won't kill us."

"What about holy water?"

"Also annoying and uncomfortable," he said. "More than sunlight. I suppose in large quantities it has potential, but I haven't tested that theory."

"Crosses?"

He smirked. "Are just wood. Very handsomely fashioned wood, but only wood all the same."

"Do you have a shadow? Or a reflection?"

"No, and yes."

And so it continued for over an hour: she quizzed him—demanded answers, more like—and he, in as good-naturedly a way as he was capable of, answered her, elaborating when she asked (demanded) it of him.

"Why did you kill Yoshida?" she asked finally.

"Because I disliked him intensely," he replied.

"You can't go around killing people just because you don't like them," she said. "There's laws against that."

"Perhaps it's escaped your attention, Tokio, but human laws don't exactly apply to me."

"So you go around indiscriminately killing people?"

He shrugged. "It isn't indiscriminate," he said. "He's the only person I've killed since I've been here."

"No one else?" she prodded, glaring at him. "Not once?"

He smirked, wider than he usually did, teeth flashing briefly.

"Waste not, want not," he replied. "Don't you think it would be very foolish of me to kill off my food supply?"

"Why him?" she asked, deciding not to touch that line. "What was so special about Yoshida that you decided to kill him?"

"He wasn't special," he said, idly taping the top of the kotatsu with one of his long-fingered hands. "I didn't even drink from him. I only disposed of him."

"But why? Because he was coming after me?"

He cocked his head and eyed her, and she forced herself not to fidget under the intent scrutiny.

"After a fashion," he said finally. "I very much disliked him around you. So I…remedied…the situation."

"By murdering him," she said flatly, and he shrugged one shoulder, expression bored.

"As you like," he said. "I never asked for approval or a blessing from you, Tokio. You're the one who asked. I'm only answering."

"I don't like the idea of you killing someone on my behalf—"

"Ah, make no mistake, Tokio," he said, voice so low it made icy fingers ghost down her spine. "That man's death was not for you in the slightest. It was for me. I am a very selfish creature. I didn't care for having him around you—there was an alarming tendency for your blood to be spilt when he was. And so, I took care of it."

"You don't like it when I bleed?" she asked incredulously, not sure she was understanding him correctly.

"I dislike the wanton waste of blood," he clarified. "It's annoying."

She stared at him. "You're out of your mind," she said finally, and he shrugged and rose.

"As you like."

"Are you leaving?" she asked, scrambling to her feet.

"I have things to attend to," he said, walking toward their shared wall. "As do you."

"I do?" she asked, frowning.

"Hn." He slanted a considering look over his shoulder. "Your keys have been very quiet of late."

"I'm taking a sort of…sabbatical, I guess you could call it."

"Hn. I believe the sabbatical's over."

And then he was gone again, and she was no closer to a resolution than she had been.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It didn't get easier.

Hajime resumed his daily visits, and Tokio allowed them. They fell back into their former routine, but she wasn't comfortable with him anymore—or at least, she could no longer tolerate his presence the way she once had, because "comfortable" and "Hajime" didn't exactly go together. She had no idea what his thoughts on the matter were, since he rarely if ever spoke. She allowed the impasse for two days before she decided enough was enough.

"Tell me about your life," she demanded suddenly on the third afternoon, and when the silence behind her stretched on she turned around to look at him.

To her surprise, he seemed startled.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked finally.

"Tell me about your life," she repeated.

"Why?"

She shrugged. "Why not?"

There was a long pause, and then he frowned. "I don't remember much of it."

"You don't remember? How is that possible?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I've been alive a very long time," he said mildly. "And this current un-life of mine is far away and very much removed from the one I led when I was human, Tokio."

"You have to remember _something_," she said. "It's not like you were too young to remember."

"That life was a long time ago," he said. "The cigarettes are about the only remnant of it anymore." His gaze pinned her. "I find myself very curious about your motives, Tokio. I get the feeling your inquisitiveness has very little to do with a sudden belief in vampires on your part."

"I never said that," she said quickly, and he chuckled low in the back of his throat; the sound was so foreign and dark it made goosebumps rise on her skin.

"I don't know you," she said finally. "I don't know anything about you, not really. That unsettles me."

He shook his head and ashed his cigarette over the smokeless ashtray. "Humans," he said wearily.

She glared at him. "Weren't _you_ were human once?" she pointed out, and he smirked.

"Once," he agreed with a nod, "a very long time ago."

"I don't understand you," she muttered. "It's like you don't care if I believe you or not."

"What you believe is your business," he said. "I can't make you think a certain way. So either you'll believe me or you won't."

"You don't even try to convince me," she muttered, and he smirked.

"And what could I possibly do to convince you, Tokio?"

"Drink my blood," she said, lifting her chin in challenge.

An odd look came over his face—it reminded her of the way he'd looked at her when he'd thought she was taking back her invitation into her home.

"No thank you," he said finally, with curious exactness.

And even though she hadn't been serious, really—_because the man wasn't a vampire, dammit_—his refusal got her back up.

"Why not? What's wrong with my blood?" she asked, knowing she sounded offended but not able to hide it.

"Nothing," he said, ashing his cigarette carefully, gaze intent on what he was doing. "Your blood's fine. I won't need to feed for another week, that's all. I did last night."

"Is that why you look different from yesterday?" she asked before she could stop herself.

A corner of his mouth twitched upwards.

"Yes," he said, putting the cigarette between thin lips.

She eyed him. His skin had lost some of that sallow look it had been getting, and his eyes were brighter. He looked…well, healthier than he had been looking. And it was little things like that, little physical changes that happened in a fairly consistent manner, that made her disquiet with the situation grow.

"Well, why not feed from me next time, then," she offered. "That seems like the easiest way to prove you are what you say you are, don't you think?"

"No."

She raised an eyebrow. "No what?" she asked.

"No, I will not feed from you next time."

"Why?"

He eyed her a long time with those piercing, flaying eyes.

"What I want from you," he said finally, "is so much more than mere sustenance."

Dread crept through her. "What you want from me," she said weakly. "And what would that be?"

"That which you so readily give to those far more undeserving than myself," he said, rubbing his cigarette out and rising in that silent, graceful way of his.

"What?" she asked, brow furrowing.

He, of course, chose not to answer her, just breezed out of her apartment the way he always did without a backward glance, and Tokio huffed and thumped a book off their shared wall.

"I hate it when you talk in riddles, Hajime-san!" she hollered, and she swore she heard his laughter in her head.

Logic, however, assured her that the walls were so thin she could hear him laugh through them. And because madness lay in the other way, Tokio agreed fervently with Logic.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She pondered over the riddle he'd given her the next day while she went about her day. Restlessness began to settle in, so she moved her ruminating to the outdoors, bundling up in her lined wool coat and trudging through the hard packed snow to the wooded area she had only a month before been so desperately trying to reach, Yoshida all but breathing down her neck.

The late afternoon sun was weak, barely enough to warm a mouse. It lit everything in golden tones, however, and charmed her enough to get her to sit down at the base of a naked, scrawny-branched tree. The quiet was lonely, but soothing, and as she soaked up her solitude, her mind turned once again to the puzzle her frustrating neighbor had so carelessly handed her.

Well, she decided with a frown, perhaps careless wasn't the right word—nothing Hajime did was careless. The man was exact, precise, careful. Which was its own special kind of irritation that was different from her current one.

He wanted what she so readily gave to others far more undeserving than him, he had said. But what did that mean? Tokio wasn't in the habit of giving anything away to anyone, particularly anyone undeserving, so the statement didn't make any sense. And that wasn't necessarily like Hajime. His riddles were never terribly cryptic, once enough time had passed and she had thought on them for a bit, but this one was much more difficult than she had been anticipating.

_What_, she wondered, _was he talking about? I don't give anything away—I don't even have anyone __**to**__ give anything away to. The only person I might have given anything to is Tami, and she's locked up_.

Which is precisely when she remembered with startling clarity the first real conversation she had had with Hajime, the night her sister and Yoshida had robbed her:

_"Why bother with them?"_

_ "Tami's my sister. Everyone else cut ties, but I couldn't leave her alone like that, without anyone."_

_ "Doesn't seem to matter to her. I'd say that fact alone should be enough to satisfy your conscience."_

It was the way he'd asked "Why bother with them?" that held her. Not out of curiosity, as she had originally thought, she realized now, had he asked that question. He had asked it because he really hadn't known. Why bother with them indeed. Why bother with anyone, really? Everyone always took and took from you. But Hajime…

_"What I want from you, is so much more than mere sustenance."_

But he was wrong about that, in a way, wasn't he? Because what Tokio provided—what she _had_ provided for him, until that night that seemed like such a long-ago bad dream—was a kind of sustenance, different from food or blood but no less significant. It was the kind of sustenance that fed a soul, that filled a basic need to matter to someone, to be _something_ to someone.

_He liked it when I asked him if he was hungry_, she thought suddenly, startled by the realization. _He liked it when I asked him if he was all right, if he wanted something. He liked it when I fussed over him._

'Yes, I did.'

Tokio yelped and looked around, then froze when she saw the huge dog from that night, the one with the eerie amber eyes that reflected their own light.

"I'm hallucinating," she muttered.

'Don't be tedious,' Hajime's voice came again, as the dog sauntered closer before settling down on its haunches in the snow before her. 'You know as well as I do that this isn't a hallucination, Tokio.'

"People don't just turn into dogs," she said from between her teeth.

'No—people don't,' he agreed. The dog's gaze conveyed amusement. 'Then again, I don't qualify as people, do I?'

"Because you're currently a dog?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

The dog sent her a flat, glowering sort of look.

'I am not a _dog_, thank you very much. I am a _wolf_. There's no dignity in dogs.'

"There aren't any wolves in Japan,' she said immediately.

'Aren't any vampires either,' was the dry reply. 'Funny how all of these things that don't exist seem to be popping up suddenly, isn't it?'

"This doesn't prove anything," she said crankily, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him.

"I never said I was trying to prove anything, Tokio," Hajime said as he suddenly materialized before her, kneeling where the wolf had been sitting.

Tokio blinked, startled by his appearance.

"Where in the seven hells did you come from?" she demanded, and he sent her an odd, gloomy sort of look.

"Won't see the forest or the trees," he murmured, rising with fluid grace.

"You aren't wearing a coat," she said suddenly.

"I don't need one," he said, brushing snow off his trouser legs, then straightening to look down at her.

"It's freezing out here," she pointed out.

He shrugged, then turned and began walking back toward the apartment building, the very top of which was visible over the tops of the bare tree branches.

"It's daylight," she said. "Shouldn't you not be able to turn into a dog?"

"Wolf," he corrected without looking back. "And shouldn't doesn't equal can't."

She watched him until he had disappeared from sight, and then she frowned at the spot where the dog—_wolf_, her mind corrected—had sat before her.

She had carried on a conversation with a voice in her head. The voice had been Hajime's. He had appeared before her, replacing the wolf with the amber eyes that were so very much like his—too much like his to be some strange coincidence. And when he'd walked away, the lanky shadow that should have stretched from his long form had been glaringly absent, just as he'd told her it was.

"Maybe," she murmured, "I'm not going crazy."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She found herself knocking on his door an hour later, after she had worked up the courage to face him.

"Hajime-san?" she asked. "May I please come in?"

Silence was the only answer she got for a long time, and then his door opened and he appeared in the doorway.

"Please?" she asked, meeting that disquieting gaze despite the way her stomach quailed.

He moved aside, his invitation implicit, and she eased into his apartment, shrugging out of her coat as she went. He shut the door softly, then left the genkan, and Tokio hung her coat and removed her shoes, then stepped up into the apartment.

It was a spartan affair, with hardly any furniture outside of one zabuton and a small table. The blinds were drawn, only allowing a lone finger of waning afternoon light to creep across the floor.

"No wonder you like coming over," she murmured.

"Atmosphere is only one of many aspects," he replied from the shadows.

She turned to look at him, and saw only his eyes glowing at her from the gloom.

"You're being very creepy," she said. "Come over here, please. I want to speak with you."

He glided out of the shadows, but his eyes never lost their intensity. Tokio ignored it as best she could, holding out a hand to him. He stopped just short of that hand and made no move toward it, so she stepped closer to him and laid a hand over his chest. And felt nothing, even after two full minutes of holding her palm flat and unmoving to his chest.

"No heartbeat," she murmured, eyes flickering up toward him.

"Who needs a heart when he's no longer alive?" he asked, raising a brow. "Looking to catch me in a lie, Tokio?"

"No," she said, eyes going over his shirtfront in fascination; you could fake vampirism, but nobody could fake not having a heartbeat. "If you do drink blood, where does it go?"

"The life of a creature is in the blood," he said, looking amused. "How else do you think I, undead as I am, keep up appearances? Its effects are temporary. It feeds all of me for a time, then slowly dies. And because I'm not actually living, I have no way of replacing it without feeding this body."

"Are some blood types more special than others?"

"Blood that's clean is special enough," he said dryly, and her eyes narrowed.

"That's why you didn't drink Yoshida's—because he used, and it made his blood dirty."

"In a manner of speaking," he said, inclining his head ever so slightly. "Those who use, as you put it, aren't healthy enough to help keep up appearances." He cocked his head and studied her. "Am I to believe you've decided to believe me, just like that?"

"I still think it's crazy," she admitted after a moment, meeting his gaze. "But there's something so un-human about you that this seems like the only logical conclusion."

"And logic is very important to humans," he murmured with a sneer.

"Do you have fangs?" she asked.

"Yes," he said after a pause.

"May I see them?"

He eyed her for a moment, then opened his mouth just enough for her to make out the gleam of teeth. After a moment, she found the fangs, slightly longer than the rest of his teeth, but otherwise quite normal looking. She gazed at them intently, then raised her arm up to his mouth and pressed the soft underside of her wrist against his teeth.

"You've already said you won't, and I'm not going to ask you again," she said when he stiffened. "But I would like for you to know, that should the need ever arise, you're welcome to what you need from me."

His gaze sharpened and intensified as it focused on her, and it was silent for a very long time. Then:

"I'm welcome to what I need from you," he repeated, gently reaching up and taking hold of her wrist to tug it from his mouth.

"Yes," she said with a nod.

"As in blood."

She shrugged. "Blood…or anything else."

His eyes brightened and then shifted to a banked glow.

"Blood or anything else," he murmured.

"Including that which I so readily give to others far more undeserving than you," she said, smiling a little.

He watched her silently. She only smiled a little wider, and eased into his arms, wrapping her own around him. It was several moments before his arms came up around her, and she felt his fingers catch lightly in her hair.

"You have nothing to gain from me, Tokio," he said quietly, his hand gently cupping the back of her head. "I'm selfish, if you'll recall."

"That's all right," she murmured. "I'm used to selfishness. Yours isn't the worst I've known."

"Settling, are we?"

"Both of us are," she said, leaning back to look up at him. "But the truth of the matter's never bothered you before."

He watched her, then smoothed a hand over her hair.

"You want very much to matter to someone, and I very much want someone."

"No," she said quietly. "You want me."

"Yes," he said after a moment. "I want you. Precisely because you want to matter to someone so very much."

"That's enough for me," she assured, once again laying her head against his chest.

Hajime anchored his chin on top of her head, hand combing slowly through her hair.

"For now."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Finis._


	4. FYI:

Just Posted Last Chapter Guys!


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